Jury rejects insanity defense citing FM radio and divine orders
A Vermont jury on September 21 convicted Jason Eaton, 51, of attempted murder for the November 2023 shooting of three Palestinian college students near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, rejecting an insanity defense built on his claims that he was acting on orders from the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies. Eaton faces up to life in prison when sentenced and was ordered held in jail pending a sentencing date that has not been set.
The attack took place a few days after Thanksgiving 2023, weeks after the onset of Israel’s military assault on Gaza. It left Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the waist down and wounded his friends Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid. All three men were 20 at the time and are now 23.
The three had been childhood friends in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, before moving to the United States for college. Awartani was studying at Brown University in Providence at the time of the attack.
Testifying during the week-long trial, Awartani described a holiday weekend that included a visit to his grandmother’s house and a trip to a bowling alley to celebrate his twin cousins’ birthday. On the night of the shooting, the three were walking near the UVM campus after dusk, smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic; two were wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, Awartani said.
Awartani told jurors he noticed Eaton standing on a porch as they approached the apartment building where Eaton lived. Within seconds, Eaton was off the porch and walking toward them. His face was expressionless and he did not say anything. As Eaton got to about five to 10 feet away, “he pulled out a handgun and started shooting at us,” said Awartani, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the attack and now uses a wheelchair.
Eaton did not dispute being the shooter. His lawyers argued he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, pointing to his claims that the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted orders to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors. The defense said Eaton had lost his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting and was suffering from what it described as a delusional, psychotic disorder.
Had Eaton been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could have been ordered to undergo mental health treatment. The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a week-long trial that saw testimony from the three men and psychiatric experts called by the defense and prosecution. Eaton stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read; Awartani and Aliahmad, seated in the front row of the courtroom gallery, smiled and hugged people around them.
In a joint statement, the families of the three men said: “Justice has been rendered for Hisham, Kinnan and Tahseen. After three years of sorrow, loss, and struggle, our families finally feel relief.” The verdict, they added, “cannot undo what happened or erase the trauma our families still carry,” but it “affirms something fundamental: Jason Eaton is responsible for what he did.”
The families said Eaton had repeatedly used “hateful” words to describe their sons during the trial. “They were not the words of a man confused about who he shot, or why,” the statement said. “They are the words of a man who saw three young men celebrating their friendship and wearing what made them feel closer to their far away families and home – and decided to kill them because of his own prejudices.” The families said they did not need a jury to determine why their sons had been targeted. “We heard it, in his own words. This was a hate crime. We have said so from the beginning.”
The shooting, which occurred weeks after the onset of Israel’s military assault on Gaza – widely condemned as a genocide – triggered calls for a hate crime investigation. But no hate crime charges were filed in the case as questions persisted about whether anti-Palestinian animus, an altered mental state or some other factor had compelled Eaton to open fire on the three students.
The families thanked communities in Burlington and Vermont for their support. They added that “our sons’ recovery unfolded alongside the genocide and destruction of Gaza and the escalating ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.” They continued: “While our children fought to heal from being shot in Burlington, they watched Palestinian children lose their lives, their homes, their land, their families. We are grateful our sons’ suffering commanded attention and support. We grieve that so much Palestinian suffering never does.”
“Hisham, Kinnan and Tahseen have spent three years rebuilding their bodies and their lives after a hateful act almost killed them. We are profoundly relieved. And we continue to work toward a world where hateful violence against Palestinians is called out for what it is – and stopped,” the families said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.